Chicago — Attorney General Lisa Madigan today announced that her office collected more than $1.1 billion in 2012 on behalf of the State of Illinois, marking the largest annual amount collected since 2003.

Through a combination of litigation and collection efforts, Madiganís office generated more than $36 for every tax dollar spent in 2012. Since Madigan took office, total collections have reached more than $9.09 billion.

ďMy office seeks to maximize our ability to generate revenue to fund critical state programs and services while maintaining the lowest level of taxpayer funding since 1997. In 2012, we successfully collected over a billion dollars on behalf of the state,Ē Madigan said.

In 2012, Madiganís office collected $1,118,090,309.69 billion on behalf of the state. The Attorney Generalís office generated nearly $571 million of this amount through collections litigation, including funds for damage to state property, child support, unpaid educational loans, fines and penalties. In addition, the Attorney Generalís office collected over $273.7 million through tobacco litigation and over $273.4 million in estate tax revenues. Every year, pursuant to state law, the Attorney General reports these collection totals to the General Assembly by February 1.

Madiganís office operated in 2012 with an appropriation from the stateís general revenue fund of $30,705,700 Ė the lowest level of taxpayer dollars funding the office since 1997. Nonetheless, Attorney General Madiganís office generated $36.41 for every state general revenue tax dollar the office received in 2012, an increase over the nearly $30 generated for every tax dollar spent in 2011.

The $1.1 billion generated in 2012 does not include tens of millions of dollars that Madiganís office successfully recovered through mediation and litigation, which then is distributed directly to Illinois residents, businesses and organizations often as restitution.

For instance, Attorney General Madiganís Consumer Fraud Bureaus recovered and saved more than $799 million on behalf of defrauded Illinois residents and businesses in 2012. That sum includes relief for Illinois borrowers from the $25 billion national foreclosure settlement that Attorney General Madigan secured in conjunction with her state counterparts, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The settlement is the second largest ever obtained through joint action of state attorneys general.

Madiganís office also reached several groundbreaking settlements with the pharmaceutical industry in 2012. Among the most notable is a joint settlement that Madiganís office, state attorneys general throughout the country and the federal government entered into with GlaxoSmithKline for $3 billion, the largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history. The settlement, which included nearly $25 million for Illinoisí Medicaid program, resolved allegations that the company engaged in illegal schemes to market and price its drugs.

Additionally, Madiganís office joined two national settlements with Abbott Laboratories, totaling $1.6 billion, over allegations of illegal and deceptive marketing of its Depakote drug. Through those settlements, Illinois received $20 million.

Madiganís office also has secured more than $75 million in unpaid gasoline sales taxes in a joint initiative with the stateís revenue department that began in late 2010. This ongoing investigation is aimed at cracking down on gas station owners who have evaded paying sales taxes by falsely reporting gasoline sales figures, causing the loss of millions of dollars in state tax revenue.